


Such a Lot

by evilythedwarf



Category: Breakfast At Tiffanys
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 21:50:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evilythedwarf/pseuds/evilythedwarf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was serious, a serious man. Always frowning. And if that accentuated the eyes, well, it's not that he did it on purpose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Such a Lot

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FairestCat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FairestCat/gifts).



It’s New York and everyone can take a nice picture, anyone can capture the face of a beautiful girl and be the man of the moment behind the camera, so he uses what he can, what he has, what he is.

 

(Sort of. Sometimes he tells himslef it's the truth, sometimes he tells himself it doesn't matter. Sometimes he doesn't like to listen to that inner voice that likes to be opinionated about it.)

 

This was before cultural pride, before parades and radically confused bilingual children and racial issues that went beyond the color of one’s skin. This was New York in the 50’s, 60’s, when everything different was either extremely interesting or extremely weird - and not in a good way.

 

First came the name. Yunioshi, like the grandmother he barely remembered. It worked, with the eyes. He could really work with it. Nobody needed to know he was raised in a crowded New York apartment, with half a dozen brothers and sisters who look just like him, with just enough of a hint of Asian to be noticeable, but not enough to be obvious.

 

(He spelled it wrong too, his last name, not that he noticed; not that anyone ever noticed.)

 

It was a risk, one he was willing to take. It could have worked or it could have not, but it did and there was no going back after that. And it wasn’t lying. Not really. Not exactly. It was just twisting the truth, twisting it hard.

 

He took some pictures, kept to himself, mostly. Built a reputation for being quiet, decent, the kind of photographer that will not try to get fresh with his models. He was serious, a serious man. Always frowning. And if that accentuated the eyes, well, it’s not that he did it on purpose.

 

Then came the décor. It was time to move out of the little hellhole in Brooklyn and he thought, ok then. Maybe some mats, here and there, maybe something that looks vaguely Japanese, that adds some credibility to my story.

 

Nobody ever doubted him, nobody ever asked questions, nobody would believe it was a lie, a half-lie, a trick or anything like it. Who would be crazy enough to try and pull something like this off? But his name was starting to ne known around. Editors talked about him when certain jobs were mentioned.

 

And people started coming to him instead of the other way around.

 

(He couldn’t give up the mattress though, and he didn’t, not until that apartment on the 4th floor with the girl who kept losing her keys. She was a pretty one, that kid.)

 

The accent, he doesn’t know when he got it. Must have been somewhere before the stereotypical wardrobe but after the change in décor because he still remembers, like it was yesterday, trying to learn Japanese in the little studio apartment he shared with his little sister in Brooklyn and failing miserably. Her name was Missy and that’s how he’s always called any girl he’s ever felt even a modicum of affection for. She never approved of what he did but she didn’t disapprove either and was the only person in his family he was still seeing by then.

 

(Years later, when he’s a wrinkled old man that looks like all wrinkled old men in the world, his sister will be the only person he will still recognize.)

 

He got a katana at some point but he’s only touched it maybe twice? After retrieving a bloody finger each time, he's always been too afraid to get hurt. That’s what life’s always been about, protecting himself, or it has been since he started keeping secrets, at least.

 

He was one of many at home, just one of the kids, one amongst a bunch of children who needed attention and care but out in the world, he was an artist and to succeed, he needed an edge. He needed to stand out in the middle of a crowd, he needed to be different and special and unique, like he never was growing up, like he always wanted to be.

 

He’s like that katana on his wall.

 

Real art.

 

A piece of work he crafted himself, something he built out of nothing. Just a Brooklyn kid who made it big because he was willing to take a chance.

 

And then.

 

It was like a snowball, his life, his lie, kept getting bigger and bigger.

 

The name, the accent, the clothes, the furniture, and one day there was nothing left of the man who began with a camera and some talent.Not even that much talent, really.

 

Models came to him now, and his name meant something, finally, but he was alone, so alone, and that was how it was always going to be because, honestly, how do let someone into that kind of secret? How do you tell someone your entire life is built on lies and half-truths?

 

He was a phony, nothing else.

 

He was like that little girl on the second floor, he can’t even remember her name. beautiful thing, all the right angles. Would have photographed wonderfully. But she was nothing but a little girl in big lady’s clothes, pretending to be something she was not and for that, for being like him that way, for being like him and letting it show, for making a play out of the drama of her life, for that he hated her almost as much as he was captivated by her.

 

(He sent her to jail once, and he still doesn’t know why. Oh, Missy, why did you have to ring so many times?)

 

 

The lie became the truth, his truth, if only because there was nothing else underneath it, and he grew old and bitter and he knew that the lie was bigger than himself, the lie carried through and everyone who knew him would carry that with them. Mr. Yunioshi with the weird accent and the angry voice, impatient and intolerable and oh so weird and oh so mean. He could have done a better job.

 

 

(Weird eccentric Asian fellows, lots of talent but cuckoo in the head, that’s the way they make them over there. Wrong, that.)

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
